15 Cars That Look Better As Hardtops Than Convertibles

 

Well I personally think the F Type looks better as a convertible, and I have very little interest in the coupe which to me looks great but not as aggressive as the roadster. I've never heard of this particular website but unless any of these guys are willing to write me the check I wrote for my car, I'm not overly interested in their opinion. For me, like all British sports cars, the F Type is best experienced with the top down. The ferocity of the sound - which is one of the main reasons I love the car - is at its best with the top down. You just don't get the full experience in the coupe. Living where I live it's year round top down weather and that's why I have the car I have and if I get another F it will be the convertible.

 

Obviously, I agree, and I had the top down the first week of January in Maryland. If it were only available as a coupe, I wouldn't have purchased the F-Type.

Who is Andrew Nussbaum, and why would anyone be interested in his opinion? These types of articles are always comical--kinda like the top 10 most beautiful people in the world.

 

Yeah, it's a blondes/brunettes thing I guess. They are all beautiful. I just happen to prefer the roadster.

 

I like the looks of the coupe better, but prefer the open sky of the roadster (even if the coupe has the pano roof). The tie went to the coupe for actually having a boot of sufficient capacity to enable frequent road trips.

 

My VERT is louder than your coupe

x

 

I can't hear you...what did you say?

 

I dislike the feel of a soft top convertible, but haven't have any newer ones after the 2007 M6. The 09 M3, with the hard top, really felt like a sports car when to top was up.

The 07 Convertible M6 and the 04 911 vert felt like driving a skateboard. Newer cars may do a better job dissapating the shocks in the body.

 

Love the softtop when it is down, dislike it when it is up. I feel that way with basically every softtop. The coupe is always sexy. However, if they did make the convertible as a hardtop I probably would have gotten it as long as it kept the current roofline of the coupe.

BTW, worst...site....ever.

 

There is no body flex in the F-Type convertible. Unlike most cars, where the hardtop was designed first, and later the manufacturer had to retrofit extra stiffness into the chassis to produce a convertible, the F-Type was designed and engineered to be a convertible first.

The coupe and convertible chassis is identical and equally rigid. The soft top is as well-insulated as the metal coupe roof, with a full headliner. You can't tell when sitting inside that it is a "soft-top."

The E93 M3 (hard-top convertible) weighed several hundred pounds more than the E90 (sedan) and E92 (coupe) M3s, because of the extra rigidity they had to put into that car along with the very heavy top and gear to raise and lower the top. It was a relative "pig" compared to the other M3 models. I had an '08 E93 M3, and wasn't terribly excited by it. It still had body-flex.

 

Not to totally call you out, but didn't Jaguar market that the coupe was 80% stiffer than the convertible was? Which is quite the feat considering the stiffness of the vert.

 

I'm sorry but that's just not correct.

The convertible chassis is fantastic and very stiff, and the vert is a beautiful car but it's just not right to say that it's identical or equally rigid to the coupe. Nor is it right to say that you can't distinguish the soft top from the hardtop from the inside. Multiple reviewers have noted that the exhaust sound and wind noise are lower from inside the coupe (not necessarily a plus, given how awesome the exhaust note is!). It should also be self-evident that this is the case.

The coupe is more rigid, and Jaguar is on record with this fact. The coupe has engineered aluminum beams that run up the A pillar, and down through the rear of the car. They are reinforced with additional structural pillars that run up just behind the seat headrests.

The roof frame is also reinforced to give additional transverse rigidity to the chassis, and the overall assembly including the roof panel -- glass or metal -- provides the car with better torsional rigidity than the convertible.

The attached cutaways should help illustrate. Sorry don't mean to be harsh, but I think it's important that folks get the right info.

 

If we're in the mood for straight talk and no bull, then we probably all ought to remember that *none* of us are driving high precision scalpels. That's not what these cars are about. Regardless of whether we bought the coupe or roadster, these are brutal, beautiful, heavy and ferocious machines, veritable sledgehammers and not canyon carvers.

With that said, you pays your money and you takes your choice in terms of roof on or roof off. I know where mine went and I'm glad it did.

 

Oh, and as for what Jaguar's engineers say about which car is up to whatever percentage stiffer, let's not forget that these are the same engineers who claim the cars weigh what they claim on the official specs.... You have to take some of the marketing fluff with a pinch of salt. It should be no surprise that a coupe is stiffer than a roadster, it was that way on my 997 coupe and 997 roadster too. But let's not think the vert is a "skateboard". It's pretty stiff for a vert and stiff enough to deliver a great ride/handling balance.

 

I made my comment and attached the photos to correct misinformation and not to tout the coupe or the convertible.

Frankly the discussion of which one looks better or provides a better owner's experience is totally uninteresting to me :-)

 

I'll take one of each, please. I like to use the right tool for the right job.

 

OK, I stand somewhat corrected.

However, I've owned more than a dozen convertibles over the years, and I've never driven one with absolutely no perceptible body flex until the F-Type. I will accept that the coupe may be more "rigid" from an engineering, failure-analysis standpoint, but that extra rigidity is undetectable from a handling and feel standpoint.

I stand by my comments on the roof not appearing to be a soft-top from inside and being hard-top-like, quiet inside. I wasn't comparing it to the F-Type Coupe, per se, just many other hardtops. If the exhaust note is, in fact, louder inside the convertible with the top up than the coupe, I agree that is a good thing.

 

I'm sure the 80% stiffer thing is technically true, but I would seriously doubt it if anyone could honestly tell. As a general rule, I think you either love convertibles or you don't. I would love to see a spyder F-Type best of both worlds.

 

While one can debate the merits (pros and cons) of one over the other beauty is always in the eyes of the beholder.

 

btw, does anybody know if the e-type was first released as a convertible? curious why jaguar released the convertible first...don't most cars release vert after?